ROYCE. ] TREATY OF JULY 8, 1817. PAIUe 
Osages. The Cherokees also ceded two small reservations made by the 
treaty of January 7, 1806.) 
The large cession by the first article of the treaty of 1817, though par- 
tially in Georgia, was at the time supposed to cover all the territory 
claimed by the Cherokees within the limits of North Carolina,? and 
was secured in deference to the urgent importunities of the legislature 
and people of that State. It was subsequently ascertained that this 
supposition was incorrect. 
Majority of Cherokees averse to removal.—During the conference, but 
before the negotiations had reached any definite result, a memorial was 
presented to the United States commissioners, signed by sixty-seven of 
the chiefs and headmen of the nation, setting forth that the delegation 
of their nation who in 1809 yisited Washington and discussed with 
President Jefferson the proposition for an exchange of lands had acted 
without any delegated authority on the subject. The memorialists 
claimed to represent the prevailing feeling of the nation and were de- 
sirous of remaining upon and retaining the country of their nativity. 
They were distressed with the alternative proposals to remove to the 
Arkansas country or remain and become citizens of the United States. 
While they had not attained asufficient degree of civilization to fit them 
for the duties of citizenship, they yet deprecated a return to the same 
savage state and surroundings which had characterized their mode of 
life when first brought in contact with the whites. They therefore re- 
quested that the subject should not be further pressed, but that they 
might be enabled to remain in peaceable possession of the land of their 
fathers.® 
The commissioners, however, proceeded with their negotiations, and 
conciuded the treaty as previously set forth, which was finally signed 
by twenty-two of the chiefs and headmen whose names appeared at- 
tached to the memorial, as well as six others, on behalf of the eastern 
portion of the nation, and by fifteen chiefs representing those on the 
Arkansas.t— The treaty was submitted to the Senate, for its advice and 
consent, at the ensuing session of Congress, and although it encountered 
the hostility of those Senators who were opposed to the general policy 
of an exchange of lands with the Indians, and of some who argued, be- 
eause of the few chiefs who had signed it, that it did not represent the 
full and free expression of their national assent,° that body approved 
its provisions, and the President ratified and proclaimed it on the 26th 
of December, 1817. 

1 These tracts are designated on the accompanying map as Nos. 25 and 26, 
2 August 1, 1817, the Secretary of War advised the governor of North Carolina that 
a treaty with the Cherokees had been concluded, by which the Indian claim was re- 
linquished to atract of country including the whole of the land claimed by them in 
North Carolina. 
*This memorial bore date of July 2, 1817. 
4United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VI, p. 156. 
5 Letter of Secretary of War to Treaty Commissioners August 1, 1817. 
